The Sci-Fi Genre and Sociohistorical Context

The Sci-Fi Genre and Sociohistorical Context

• Allegory
• A media product that has a hidden meaning
• E.g Animal Farm

• Zeitgeist
• The 'spirit of the time'
• E.g Fresh Prince of Bel Air for the 90's

• Humans Sci-Fi Conventions
• Blue eyes
• Not comedy
• Robots
• Theme tune has sympathises
• Not romantic
• Themes of artificial intelligence
• Robotic speech
• Clean, blue mise-en-scene
• Stiff movement
• Realistic real world elements

• Themes
• Sexualisation
• Sexual Exploitation
• Modern Slavery
• Capitalism and the nuclear family
• Prostitution and the rights of sex workers
• Racism

Allegorical Aspect

• Sex Robots
• A robot is a depiction of a human. Desensitise to boundaries of what is real and what is not you lose reach of real life.

• Pornography
• Cultivation theory as it is making it okay to do certain things to a woman as it is normalised so often.

• Modern Slavery
• They buy Anita from a shop. Slave market represented by the synth shop.

• Modern Slavery
• The synths are programmed to do all the housework and as they are robots they don't get paid for it. 

• Modern Slavery
• It is justified to do whatever they want to the robots as they're just a 'machine'.

Key Theory - Steve Neale - Theories Around Genre

• Why does genre exist?
• Who benefits from generic classification?
• What are some advantages of genre?
• What are some disadvantages of genre?

Differences in Anita and Laura

• Anita is physically younger compared to Laura
• Anita is eastern asian and Laura is white
• Anita is on a different side of the room compared to Laura
• Anita is wearing basic factory clothing compared to Laura who is wearing everyday clothes